business & society - vu-dare home - vrije universiteit amsterdam

http://bas.sagepub.com/Business & Society

http://bas.sagepub.com/content/44/3/283The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0007650305278086

2005 44: 283Business SocietyFrank G. A. De Bakker, Peter Groenewegen and Frank Den Hond

Corporate Social PerformanceA Bibliometric Analysis of 30 Years of Research and Theory on Corporate Social Responsibility and

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

International Association for Business and Society

can be found at:Business & SocietyAdditional services and information for

http://bas.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://bas.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://bas.sagepub.com/content/44/3/283.refs.htmlCitations:

at Vrije Universiteit 34820 on April 3, 2011bas.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://bas.sagepub.com/

http://bas.sagepub.com/content/44/3/283

http://www.sagepublications.com

http://www.iabs.net

http://bas.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://bas.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://bas.sagepub.com/content/44/3/283.refs.html


10.1177/0007650305278086BUSINESS & SOCIETY / September 2005de Bakker et al. / BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

A Bibliometric Analysis of 30 Yearsof Research and Theory on Corporate

Social Responsibility andCorporate Social Performance

FRANK G. A. DE BAKKERPETER GROENEWEGEN

FRANK DEN HONDVrije Universiteit

Social responsibilities of businesses and their managers have been discussed sincethe 1950s. Yet no consensus about progress has been achieved in the corporate so-cial responsibility/corporate social performance literature. In this article, we seekto analyze three views on this literature. One view is that development occurredfrom conceptual vagueness, through clarification of central constructs and theirrelationships, to the testing of theory—a process supported by increased sophisti-cation in research methods. In contrast, other authors claim that hardly any prog-ress is to be expected because of the inherently normative character of the litera-ture. A final view is that progress in the literature on the social responsibilities ofbusiness is obscured or even hampered by the continuing introduction of new con-structs. This article explores which of these three views better describes the evolu-tion of the literature during a period of 30 years and suggests implications forfurther research.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; corporate social performance;bibliometry; theory development

Although the social responsibilities of business, firms, and their managershave been discussed in the academic literature since the 1950s at least,there appears to be no consensus about the question of whether any prog-ress has been made in the academic literature on these responsibilities.Certainly, corporate social responsibility (CSR), which McWilliams andSiegel (2001) define broadly as “actions that appear to further some social

283

BUSINESS & SOCIETY, Vol. 44 No. 3, September 2005 283-317DOI: 10.1177/0007650305278086© 2005 Sage Publications



good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law”(p. 117) has gained a prominent position in general management literature(cf. Carroll, 1999; Cochran & Wood, 1984; McGuire, Sundgren, &Schneeweis, 1988; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Whetten, Rands, &Godfrey, 2002; Windsor, 2001). But whereas the concept of CSR is fre-quently applied and the literature is loaded with studies coining CSR,there is strikingly little unanimity concerning the actual evolution of thisfield. We want to explore this evolutionary process.

A similar situation is found in the closely related literature on corporatesocial performance (CSP). To some, CSR is viewed as pertaining to prin-ciples—corporate social responsiveness to the action taken by firms inthis respect—whereas CSP relates to the outcomes of such action (Freder-ick, 1994). To others, including Wartick and Cochran (1985) and Wood(1991), CSP is an overarching concept that includes responsibilities,responsiveness, and policies and action in this domain. Given thesediverging definitional views of the central concepts, as well as the incon-clusive evidence in research on the relationship between CSP and thefirms’financial performance (Griffin & Mahon, 1997; Margolis & Walsh,2003; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Orlitzky, Schmidt, & Rynes, 2003;Ruf, Muralidhar, & Paul, 1998), we consider it appropriate to broaden ourview from CSR to also include work on CSP.

Considering the question of whether any evolution occurred in the lit-eratures on the concepts of CSR and CSP, we suggest that three views canbe distinguished. According to what we call the progressive view, theCSR/CSP literature has developed from conceptual vagueness, throughclarification of central constructs and their relationships, to the testing oftheory. This process was aided by the application of increasingly sophisti-cated research methods (Gerde & Wokutch, 1998; Rowley & Berman,2000). The “variegational view” argues that the realization of progress inthe literature on the social responsibilities of business is obscured, or pos-sibly even hampered, by the continuing introduction of new constructs(Carroll, 1999; Mohan, 2003). Finally, according to the “normativistview,” hardly any progress has been made, or in fact can be made, becauseof the inherently normative character of the literature (Matten, Crane, &Chapple, 2003). In this article, we seek to analyze the CSR/CSP literaturein light of these three views, aiming to explore which view better describesthe evolution of this literature during a period of 30 years.

In this contribution, we present a bibliometric analysis of research andtheory development on CSR/CSP. Literature reviews may serve severalfunctions. They may contribute, for instance, to assess the influence ofdifferent journals (Baumgartner & Pieters, 2003; Tahai & Meyer, 1999) toconsider scientific impact (Ingwersen, 2000; van Dalen & Henkens,

284 BUSINESS & SOCIETY / September 2005



2001), to obtain an overall view of the intellectual structure of a field(Dobers, Strannegard, & Wolff, 2000; Hill & Carley, 1999; Locke &Perera, 2001), or to suggest how a field might move forward (Eisenhardt,1989; Margolis & Walsh, 2003; Morrison & Bies, 1991). In our study, wepartly follow Hill and Carley (1999) who described the structure and evo-lution of attention to organizational culture as the development of a com-munity of scholars. The bibliometric methods we deploy to obtain anoverview of the intellectual structure of the fields of CSR/CSP aredirected at finding meaningful structures and patterns in, for instance,authors, journals, citation patterns, and epistemological orientations. Wecomplement this with a text analysis of the paper titles (Callon, Law, &Rip, 1986; Hill & Carley, 1999). We want to describe how the concepts ofCSR and CSP established throughout time in general management litera-ture by looking for regularities.

This article is organized as follows: We aim to explore which of thethree views discussed is more plausible, by analyzing the literature duringa long period of time, focusing on its epistemological orientation andusing bibliometric techniques as co-word analysis to identify shifts incontent. Therefore, in the next section, we address three views on thequestion of how the CSR/CSP literature has evolved during the pastdecades. The Data Collection section describes the collection of ourdataset. The Method section describes the methods we used to interpretour dataset; we discuss the main elements of our analysis and the methodswe use. The Results and Analysis section contains an extensive analysis ofthese data through various bibliometric procedures. Finally, the Discus-sion section contains issues for discussion, recommendations for furtherresearch, and concluding remarks.

DIFFERENT VIEWS ON CSR/CSP

In the following statement, Carroll (1979) describes CSR: “The socialresponsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, anddiscretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a givenpoint in time” (p. 500). Nearly 25 years later, Whetten et al. (2002) definedCSR as “societal expectations of corporate behavior; a behavior that isalleged by a stakeholder to be expected by society or morally required andis therefore justifiably demanded of a business” (p. 374). In this definition,the broad term society has been narrowed down to stakeholders. Societalexpectations are thus represented, translated, and delivered at the com-pany’s gates by stakeholders. Managers encounter a variety of expecta-tions and demands of multiple stakeholders to devote resources to CSR

de Bakker et al. / BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS 285



(McWilliams & Siegel, 2001). Although the concept of CSR thus seems tohave become more tangible, one could wonder whether the different con-ceptualizations of CSR reflect academic progress or whether it merelyrepresents a substitution of concepts. A number of authors have proposedhow the CSR/CSP literature has evolved during the years (e.g., Carroll,1999; Gerde & Wokutch, 1998; Rowley & Berman, 2000). By reflectingon their arguments, we can develop expectations about our empirical find-ings. Below, we will discuss three different accounts of evolution in theCSR/CSP literature: progression, variegation, and normativism. By reflect-ing on these different views, we develop expectations for our analysis ofthe literature.

Progression

One perspective on advances in CSR/CSP literature suggests a gradualrise of empirically grounded theory development and testing; this per-spective is found in two recent review papers (Gerde & Wokutch, 1998;Rowley & Berman, 2000). In their 25-year analysis of the proceedingspublished by the Social Issues in Management Division (SIM) of theAcademy of Management, Gerde and Wokutch (1998), building on Pres-ton (1986), distinguish four phases: “gestation and innovation” in the1960s, “development and expansion” in 1972-1979, “institutionaliza-tion” in 1980-1987, and “maturity” in 1988-1996 (p. 416). The purpose ofresearch in the first of these four phases “was to describe the situation andperhaps to develop theories of the dimensions of corporate social respon-sibility or the specific relationship between business and society andbetween the firm and its employees” (Gerde & Wokutch, 1998, p. 419).Consequently, the expectation would be that very little conceptual, pre-dictive, or instrumental research designs are found and that exploratoryand descriptive research designs would dominate. However, Gerde andWokutch (1998) note “the absence of empirical work in these earlypapers” (p. 421). Regarding the later periods, “one would expect that therewould be more theory testing in the latter part of the 25 years because thereare more developed theories to test and the methodology has improved (orbecome more refined)” (Gerde & Wokutch, 1998, p. 431). Their findingsshow an increasing number of “theory testing” papers among the SIMproceedings from 16% in Phases 2 and 3 to almost 30% in Phase 4, thusconfirming the latter expectation and, by implication, supporting the pro-gressive view on the evolution of the CSR/CSP literature. Of course, itremains to be seen what comes after 1996. Would there be a continuationof the theory-oriented “mature” phase? Or, as is inevitable in life-cyclemodels, would a period of decline have started?




Two caveats are in place when transposing Gerde and Wokutch’s(1998) analysis to our dataset. First, their analysis is based on conferencepapers and abstracts, whereas our dataset is based on abstracts of paperspublished in peer-reviewed journals. Consequently, there may be somedelay between the phasing they propose and the phasing we might findfrom our dataset. However, although the exact timing of the phases couldvary somewhat, the overall trend should be similar. Second, it is quitelikely that not all conference contributions end up being published in aca-demic journals. Given the positivist format of many academic journals,contributions with a theoretical relevance are more likely to be publishedin comparison to descriptive and prescriptive contributions, possiblyintroducing an underrepresentation of descriptive and prescriptive contri-butions in our sample and causing divergence from the pattern that Gerdeand Wokutch (1998) observed.

The analysis of Gerde and Wokutch (1998) can be supplemented by thework of Rowley and Berman (2000) on CSP, who suggest that the litera-ture can be characterized in three distinct periods, although they do notclearly position these periods on a time line: (a) development and defini-tion of the CSP construct; (b) operationalization of the CSP definition,notably focusing on the relationship between CSP and financial perfor-mance (FP), yet with “contradictory and ambiguous results”; and (c)explanation of the “disappointing” results of the CSP–FP relationship andsolutions to direct future study. Yet in spite of this progressive perspective,Rowley and Berman (2000) point at some of the problems surroundingCSP, noting that “CSP research offers an eclectic array of studies that . . .complicates the process of identifying the boundary conditions of the con-struct” (p. 398). Their recommendations for future research thereforeinclude more “theoretically grounded research . . . within narrowlydefined organizational contexts” (p. 415) and more focus on understand-ing underlying phenomena rather than CSP–FP relationships as such.Still, they also see a gradual, yet difficult, progression in the CSR/CSPliterature.

What consequences does a progressive view have for our expectationsabout how the literature evolves? The overall expectation is that specificchanges in the composition of the dataset should be found. At firstinstance, conceptual and descriptive papers would be expected to domi-nate. This would reflect the development and definition of a few centralconstructs, as well as attempts to gain academic legitimacy for the study ofbusiness–society relationships. Next, the operationalization of the centralconstruct and the focus on its correlation with financial performance leadone to expect the emergence of exploratory and predictive studies. Finally,the possible disappointment regarding the results of such studies (cf.




Rowley & Berman, 2000) would lead one to expect a reemergence of con-ceptual papers. Following this progressive view, we would expect to findfew instrumental, normative, and descriptive papers in our dataset.

Variegation

A second view includes categorizations of the literature that emphasizethe variegated properties of CSR/CSP literature. For instance, Mohan(2003) views CSR as an empirical concept that refers to one or a few of themany incarnations of the business–society relationship. The meaning ofthe concept varies in time and place. Furthermore, it is a concept thatrelates to, but sometimes also competes1 with other concepts such as busi-ness ethics, sustainable development, corporate philanthropy, organiza-tional citizenship, or social accountability. The pattern as depicted in Fig-ure 1 suggests how, across time, a number of concepts were added to acontinuing debate that builds on notions of the social responsibilities ofbusiness, firms, and their managers.

In a similar vein, Carroll (1999) analyzed the evolution of the conceptand definition of CSR. He traces the origins of the modern era of CSR in


CorporateCitizenship

TripleBottom Line

SustainableDevelopment

Corporate SocialRectitude

CSP Corporate SocialPerformance

Stakeholder Model

Corporate Social Responsiveness

CSR Corporate Social Responsibility

Business Social Responsibility / Social Responsibility of Businessman

Business Ethics / Business Philanthropy, Charity

--1950----1955----1960----1965----1970----1975----1980----1985----1990----1995------2002--- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ------ -

Figure 1. Developments in CSR-Related ConceptsSource: Mohan, 2003, p. 74.Note: CSR = corporate social responsibility.



the 1950s and observes definitional activities in the 1960s and their prolif-eration in the 1970s. According to Carroll (1999),

In the 1980s, there were fewer new definitions, more empirical research,and alternative themes began to mature. These alternative themes includedCSP, stakeholder theory and business ethics theory. In the 1990s, CSR con-tinues to serve as a core construct but yields to or is transformed into alter-native thematic frameworks.” (p. 268)

If Carroll’s suggestion is valid, we would expect (a) an inverted U-curveon CSR and (b) the emergence of keywords coding for the alternativeframes. Although the literature may have become dominated by theoreti-cal research (the first part of the inverted U-curve), it may also have beenthe case that subsequent variegation of terms and concepts from the early1990s onwards obscures or even diverts the literature from further pro-gression on the earlier constructs (second part of the curve). It thus may beexpected that similar patterns of proliferation of definitions will continueto dominate the literature.

How current academic research on CSR/CSP could be interpretedfrom this view is not entirely clear. If academic research precedes (influ-ences, shapes) the societal debate about the social responsibilities of busi-ness, or if it is largely independent from it, the CSR/CSP literature is a rel-atively distinct field, in which the regularities in the progression fromconcept development, via theory specification, to theory testing couldindeed be observed (Carroll, 1999; Gerde & Wokutch, 1998; Rowley &Berman, 2000). It could also be the case, however, that academic researchtries to follow and capture trends in the broader societal debate about busi-ness’ social responsibilities. If that were the case, the emergence of termsand concepts becomes a myriad that reflects a complex pattern of overlapand distinction. In that situation, it may well be the case that the questionof whether CSR/CSP is used to classify a particular piece of research, orany other of the terms and concepts available, is at least partly a matter ofchance. In this scenario, any progress from concept to theory testing mightwell be obscured by the continuing interjection of new concepts thatsometimes are also classified as CSR/CSP, but in other instances are not,and that require further conceptualization before theory can be developedand tested. The result would be some sort of unproductive confusion oftongues (cf. Collins, 2000). Thus, in comparison to the progressive view,more normative papers are to be found because in a normative field suchCSR/CSP is, new concepts substitute for existing concepts if they not onlydemonstrate improved explanatory power but also are more effective than




the established concepts in providing a moral justification for why firmsshould attend to their social responsibilities.

Normativism2

Jones and Wicks (1999) identified an overt normative stance in recentwork on social issues in management. A third view hence stresses theinherently normative character of the literature on CSR/CSP and relatedtopics. Matten et al. (2003) argued that CSR is one of the central buildingblocks of modern business and society literature. On CSR, these authorsnote that “much of the seminal work was largely normative in nature withthe main focus being on the definition of the boundaries of responsibilityof business. More recently, certain strains of literature have attempted toaddress more pragmatic concerns” (Matten et al., 2003, p. 110). Theyidentify CSP literature as an example of these pragmatic approaches, as it“attempts to model and measure social responsibility in terms of perfor-mance” (Matten et al., 2003, p. 110). In discussing the concept of corpo-rate citizenship (CC), which is sometimes presented as a successor toCSR, they note that “there seems to be nothing in the CC literature whichis significantly different from the traditional CSR stance, except that itlacks any explicit normative aspect” (Matten et al., 2003, p. 113). Thiscomment implies that CSR literature has an explicit normative feature toit, thus relating to some ethical, moral, or religious point of view.

What would be the implications for our expectations about progress inthe fields of CSR/CSP? The normativist view suggests that a lot of pre-scriptive work can be found in the field of CSR, in both its normative andinstrumental connotations. From that suggestion, it inherently followsthat only limited progress has been made, or even can be made, in the fieldof CSR/CSP. Because of the prescriptive character of the literature, fewstudies will enter discussions about theoretical constructs, let aloneexploring or testing these constructs.

DATA COLLECTION

To chart the actual developments in the CSR/CSP field, we searchedthe ISI Web of Science Social Science Citation Index (WoS/SSCI) andABI/Inform Archive Complete, Global, and Trade & Industry (ABI/Inform) databases for the entire period for which these databases provideonline coverage. Roughly, this covers a period of 35 years, because theoldest paper in our dataset was published in 1969. However, not all jour-nals have been included in these databases all this time, and both data-




bases continue to expand their back catalogues. We used the followingfive search terms: CSR, corporate social responsib*, corporate socialresponsive*, corporate social performance, and CSP. With these terms,we searched the databases on the following categories: title, keywords,and abstract. We limited our search to CSR and CSP because these twoconcepts are central to the discussion of CSR.

Although searches for alternative terms yielded extra “hits,” a closerexamination revealed that alternative themes often were grounded in sep-arate theoretical debates—for instance, on issue(s) management, corpo-rate citizenship, and corporate philantropy. Therefore, to avoid concep-tual unclarity, we decided not to use any of these search terms.3 Neitherdid we use results from searches on terms relating to the stakeholder con-cept. Of course, there are clear parallels between the rise in attention forCSR/CSP and stakeholder management (Whetten et al., 2002). Stake-holders are important in the process of representing, translating, anddelivering their expectations to the firm. Different stakeholders willemphasize different aspects of CSR, and although they play an importantrole in the CSR/CSP debate, their angle is slightly different, as they wantto further their specific interests and their view of what CSR is or shouldbe. Debates in the stakeholder literature also touch on issues of CSR butare mainly concerned with the advancement of stakeholder theory assuch. Furthermore, the term stakeholder nowadays is applied so broadlythat it becomes quite complex to determine whether a paper retrieved byusing this search term in fact still addresses issues of CSR, only touches onCSR slightly, or does not do so at all. Many studies consider some aspectsof CSR—for example, focusing on health care management (cf. Zinkhan& Balazs, 2004) or other policy-related issues such as education(Macpherson, 1998)—even though their main contribution is in anotherfield than business and society research. In cases like these, it is hard todraw a line on what involves CSR/CSP and what does not. For these rea-sons, we did not conduct a separate search on search terms relating to thestakeholder concept.4

Finally, searches on terms such as corporate responsi*—that is, with-out the word social—resulted in datasets with minimal overlap to thesearch results obtained by the application of our initial search terms.Closer examination of the resulting publications suggested that they focuson the responsibilities and responsiveness of corporations to specificissues, such as sustainability and obligations toward employees. Becausewe searched both within titles and within abstract and keywords, we sug-gest that adding or deleting the word social would result in entering differ-ent literatures. We therefore decided not to include these papers in ourdataset, even if it has been suggested that the literature would benefit from




focus on the responsibilities of firms in particular areas, rather than on thebroader, less well-defined concept of their social responsibilities (Rowley& Berman, 2000).

We recombined the various searches and manually examined all theentries to clean up the raw dataset. Book reviews, dissertation abstracts,and publications that had no apparent relationship to the topic at handwere deleted. Introductions to special issues were kept in the dataset,because they make a substantial contribution to the literature, if only fortheir justification of why the special issue should be relevant or of interest.Furthermore, we checked the resulting datasets for missing papers bycomparing them with the references listed in a number of recent literaturereviews by Gerde and Wokutch (1998), Griffin and Mahon (1997),Rowley and Berman (2000), Orlitzky et al. (2003), and Carroll (1999). Wethus identified six papers that were not present in our dataset but thatneeded to be added because they met the search criteria we applied. Mostof these papers were published in Business Horizons, which apparently isnot well covered in WoS/SSCI and ABI/Inform.

The final step was to delimit the dataset in time. Although the WoS/SSCI and ABI/Inform databases go back beyond the 1950s, our searchresulted in only one paper published in 1969 and no papers published in1970 and 1971. This set a natural limit to the analysis. At the other end ofthe time line, we chose the year 2002 as the final year of analysis, becausewe observed an unexpected trend downward in the number of publishedpapers in 2003. This we attribute to the time lag by which publications areintegrated into the databases; we believe that it is likely that at the time ofdata collection (May 2004), not all journal papers from 2003 onwardswere included in these databases.

Through these procedures, we obtained three datasets—CSR, CSP,and the combined CSRCSP dataset, which was constructed by combiningthe two other datasets and removing double entries. The CSP dataset con-tains 155 entries; the CSR dataset 505 entries; and the combined CSRCSPcontains 549 entries. Apparently, more than two thirds of the CSP datasetis also covered by the CSR dataset, which suggests that the CSR and CSPliteratures basically cover the same domain. Figure 2 suggests that theCSP and CSR literatures completely overlap until the early 1990s; onlyfrom that moment onwards, a limited number of CSP papers is publishedthat can be distinguished from the CSR literature. This finding reinforcesthe validity of our ex-ante decision to consider both CSR and CSP publi-cations. Our analysis thus focuses on the 30-year period between the early1970s and 2002.

We analyzed the resulting datasets in various ways. To analyze the lit-erature and provide input for our research question, we approached these




datasets with two sets of questions. The first set is about the journals inwhich research on CSR and on CSP has been published, on who publishedthese papers, and on which papers and journals have been cited mostoften? Addressing these questions illustrates how representative ourdatasets are and thus supports our further findings. The second set of ques-tions provides us with information about developments in the field ofCSR/CSP and thus enables us to examine which of the three views out-lined before is most pertinent: How have publication and citation patternsevolved throughout the years? How has the epistemological orientation ofthe papers evolved throughout the years? What are the main differencesbetween the CSR and CSP datasets? In the subsequent section, we willdiscuss the methods we used to address these questions.

METHOD

We applied various methods to analyze our datasets. Several of theabove questions can be answered by straightforward counting numbers ofpapers, authors, or journals. However, the question regarding the epi-stemological orientation of the papers in the dataset requires further meth-odological explanation, as do the methods we applied in our text analysis.

Determining the Epistemological Orientation

Our interest in the possible evolution of the epistemological orienta-tion throughout time stems from the discrepancy between observationsthat the CSR/CSP literature is predominantly normative in nature (Mattenet al., 2003) and the suggestion of the evolution of the literature’s content


0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

CSP CSR CSP, running 3-year average CSR, running 3-year average CSRCSP CSRCSP, running 3-year average

Figure 2. Number of Publications Per Year, CSR, CSP, and CSRCSPNote: CSR = corporate social responsibility; CSP = corporate social performance; CSRCSP =combined CSR and CSP.



throughout time, such as from the development of concepts to more pre-scriptive and/or theoretical contributions (Carroll, 1999; Gerde &Wokutch, 1998; Rowley & Berman, 2000). In this respect, at the mostgeneral level, papers can be considered to have a theoretical, prescriptive,or descriptive orientation (Barley, Meyer, & Gash, 1988). However, a fur-ther distinction between these orientations is possible and useful. We sug-gest that identifying the papers with the terms in Table 1 is helpful.5 Papershave a theoretical contribution if they enhance the systematic understand-ing of some phenomenon at an abstract level. A theoretical contributionmay or may not involve the collection of new empirical data. Conceptualpapers do not rely on empirical data, but predictive and explorative papersdo. Predictive papers make use of data to confirm or refute hypotheses,whereas exploratory papers develop expectations about relationshipsbetween constructs. Conceptual papers also include such expectations,but they do so by building on established theoretical insights. Papers makea prescriptive contribution if they provide prescription to professionalsand practitioners about how to realize some desired end. Prescriptive con-tributions may be based on either an instrumental or a normative logic.


Table 1Classification Scheme for Epistemological Orientation of Papers

TheoreticalConceptual Major focus is on developing propositions, hypotheses, or (cor)rela-

tions between theoretical constructs, based on a discussion of state-of-the-art literature; no new empirical material has been collectedfor this work.

Exploratory Major focus is on developing propositions, hypotheses, and (cor)rela-tions between theoretical constructs, based on the examination ofextensive, new empirical data.

Predictive Major focus is on testing (refutation, confirmation) of propositions,hypotheses, or (cor)relations between theoretical constructs, basedon the examination of extensive, new empirical data.

PrescriptiveInstrumental Major focus is on providing prescription (means, ideas, recipes for

action) to practitioners and professionals, that are instrumental inthe realization of some desired end, such as improved performancealong some dimension.

Normative Major focus is on providing prescription (means, ideas, recipes foraction) to practitioners and professionals, that are valuable in them-selves when considered from some ethical, moral, or religious pointof view.

DescriptiveDescriptive Major focus is on reporting fact or opinion; no intention of a

theoretical or prescriptive contribution.



Finally, papers may aim to report data or opinion, as these might be inter-esting in themselves, without the author making a noticeable attempt tocontribute to either theory or practice. We call these papers descriptive.

We proceeded as follows. All the abstracts in the CSR and CSP datasetswere reviewed to establish their epistemological orientation. To this end,we used the typology as represented in Table 1. During this process, twoof the authors of this article independently categorized the papers basedon a close reading of the abstracts. In classifying papers, the author’s ownambition was a significant indication (“this paper aims to”) in addition toour own judgment. If in doubt or otherwise deemed necessary, we tried toobtain the full paper because the epistemological orientation can oftenbetter be established on the basis of a full paper than on the basis of anabstract. We were able to find abstracts or copies for 151 out of the 155entries (97, 4% of the sample) in the CSP dataset; for the CSR dataset, wecould retrieve an abstract or copy for 471 out of 505 entries (93, 3% of thesample). Two thirds of the “missing values” are entries from the 1970s,accounting for a quarter of the number of entries we identified in thisperiod. We nevertheless believe that our analysis is representative of theentire dataset, especially from the 1980s onward.

After the first round of abstract-based classification, there was agree-ment on the classification of 385 of the 471 CSR papers (81, 7% of thesample) and on 117 out of the 151 CSP papers (77, 5% of the sample).Most disagreement was about the classification of abstracts as descriptiveas opposed to notably exploratory or instrumental; disagreement wasmainly on the question of whether a theoretical or prescriptive contribu-tion was made beyond the mere presentation of opinion or facts in the pub-lication (34 out of 75 cases of disagreement, 45%). We ascribe this dis-agreement to the significant differences that can be observed in the lengthand clarity of how the abstracts are written. The papers on which the cod-ers disagreed were recoded but now based on the full papers, as far as thesecould be retrieved. All remaining entries could be classified unequivo-cally. After the subsequent discussion of the methods of text analysis weapplied, we will present the outcomes of our analyses of the CSR/CSPliterature.

Method of Text Analysis

The patterns we observed from counting, categorizing, and determin-ing the epistemological orientations of the papers are supplemented bytext analysis to provide an additional view on our datasets. The field oftext analysis is rather diverse, and a variety of methods are available (Pop-ping, 1999; Roberts, 1997). In this research, we used titles as text inputs to




perform a semi-automated text analysis directed at creating maps of theCSR and CSP databases. We applied a method developed by Carley(1997), which is supported by Automap, an automated text analysis pro-gram (Carley, 1997; Hill & Carley, 1999).6 Title entries from papers in ourdatasets were converted to a text file, and the text was analyzed usingAutomap. With this computer program, concepts in a text can be extractedand linked into statements based on their proximity in the text and theninto networks of statements within the entire text (Lewis, Diesner, &Carley, 2003). In this way, combinations of words can be mapped andtraced across time to demonstrate developments in the field ofinvestigation.

A list of word frequencies was generated to compare the use of titlewords in different time periods. To enable a meaningful analysis, a reduc-tion in the number of words in the list is necessary. First, as a start, we didnot consider title words that appeared only in a low frequency. We chose totake as a cutoff point a frequency of six, which means that only words thatappeared in the text six times or more were included in our analysis. Sec-ond, we manually removed redundant words, such as prepositions. In pre-paring the word lists for analysis, a balance must be struck between anextensive reduction of words and the significance of possible generaliza-tions. In our case, directed at comparisons throughout years and betweendifferent datasets, maintaining a basic enough set of words without toomuch generalization led us to delete unique concepts. In fact, we appliedan extensive delete list for both the CSR and CSP database, based on therelevant frequencies; words occurring less than the number of periodsstudied therefore were deleted. To check whether unique words character-ize a certain period, the absolute frequency of words was checked for eachof the periods before applying this delete list. To generalize the results, alimited number of words were combined via a thesaurus operation: Firmand firms, for instance, were recoded to firm. In an iterative process, theresults were checked. We decided to combine the words corporate andsocial within the text files because, in our quite specific datasets, corpo-rate social can be regarded as one single construct. After this generaliza-tion, word frequencies were determined for both the CSR and CSPdataset.

The difference between both datasets was analyzed by windowing thetitle words. Windowing is the analyst’s choice to determine the proximity-based association of words. It is in this analytical step that an influentialchoice is made on how to approach the association, or network, of con-cepts. Window size determines what is considered a meaningful combina-tion of terms. After extensive delete and generalization operations, forsentences, a choice can be made to use either direct proximity—where




words are drawn together after reduction—or a reduction where the placein the original sentence is maintained. In the first case, a limited windowsize is useful; in the latter case, complete sentences are usually coded. Inthis article, we used the latter approach and applied a window size of three.Windowing delivers the map of concepts used in a text that is analyzed inthe form of a frequency of associations between a given pair of words.

As an additional step to this text analysis, the outcomes of the mappinghave been analyzed and presented as maps of related title words. Thisgraphic clustering of words was obtained by applying UCINET networksoftware and Netdraw (Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman, 2002).7 Some ofthese clusters will be discussed in the next section.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

Having discussed the methods we applied in our study, it is now time toprovide answers to the questions raised in the Data Collection section.Below, we discuss the number of papers that appeared across time, thejournals in which these papers were published, the most prominentauthors and their epistemological orientations, and which papers are mostoften cited in subsequent publications. The results are supplemented withthe findings from the text analysis procedure.

Number of papers. Figure 2 shows the number of papers in our threedatasets. It is evident that, on average, the number of papers remains fairlyconstant until about 1990. After that year, a steady increase in the numberof publications can be observed. This could either reflect increased inter-est in the topic (i.e., real change) or could also be an effect of our dataselection if WoS/SSCI and ABI/Inform are more comprehensive for the1990s than before. Because both databases continue to add volumes ofjournals back in time, a replication of our findings within some distantfuture could provide evidence about this issue. If our findings representreal change, then it is noteworthy that the CSR and the CSRCSP datasetscompletely overlap until 1990. This suggests that, up to that moment intime, the CSP dataset is a subset of the CSR dataset. Only after 1990, thetwo datasets start to differentiate. This finding has two implications. First,because of the difference in size of the CSR and CSP datasets, the com-bined CSRCSP dataset will be dominated by CSR data. Second, it raisesthe question whether, in the years after 1990, the composition of the CSPdataset is distinct from the CSR dataset. Although seeking explanationsfor possible changes observed in our dataset is beyond our objectives, onemight tentatively suggest that this change took place around the 1990s




because of a growing attention for globalization and a related shift in thelocus of corporate control: away from national authorities (e.g., Beck,2000; Strange, 1996).

Journals. A comparison of the journals in which the papers in our CSRand CSP datasets have appeared can also be made. The CSR papers haveappeared in 132 different journals and CSP papers in 42. The CSP paperswere published in 10 journals in which no CSR papers appeared. Never-theless, there is a considerable overlap in the main outlets for CSR andCSP papers (Table 2). The specialist journals Business & Society andJournal of Business Ethics have published the largest number of publica-tions. However, the former journal dominates the CSP literature, whereasthe latter dominates the CSR literature. Business Ethics Quarterly ishardly represented with less than 2% of the papers published. The Acad-emy of Management journals rank high in both datasets, but in the CSRdataset also, journals such as Business and Society Review and CaliforniaManagement Review are prominently represented. The CSP field appearsto be more concentrated than the CSR field as four journals contain morethan 59% of all CSP papers; in the CSR database, eight journals containmore than 56% of the CSR papers.

Authors. The 155 papers in the CSP dataset were written by 189 differ-ent authors (1.2 author per paper), whereas 621 authors wrote the 505CSR papers (1.2 author per paper). The combination of WoS/SSCI andABI/Inform yields some insights concerning the most productive authors;in both databases, one author was included who published 10 papers. Inthe CSP database, this was Roy Simerly, and in the CSR database, this wasArchie Carroll.

Epistemological orientation. The papers in the CSRCSP datasetappear to be largely of a theoretical (48.7% of CSRCSP) or descriptive(37.0% of CSRCSP) nature (Table 3). The CSP dataset is considerablymore theoretical in orientation; almost two thirds of the entries have a the-oretical orientation, and less than 10% have a prescriptive orientation.There was an unexpected low number of normatively oriented papers(2.9% of CSRCSP, less than 1% of CSP), given the complaints about theinherently normative nature of the literature (Matten et al., 2003). Half ofthe theoretical papers are of an exploratory nature; the other half is almostequally portioned between a conceptual and a predictive orientation.

The question is how the epistemological orientation develops through-out time. Figures 3 to 6 show for the CSR and CSP datasets how the fre-quency by which the different types of papers were published change per




Tabl

e 2

Mai

nP

ubli

cati

onSo

urce

sof

CSR

and

CSP

CSR

CSP

Num

ber

% o

fN

umbe

r of

% o

fJo

urna

lof

Art

icle

saTo

tal

Cum

ulat

ive

%Jo

urna

lA

rtic

lesb

Tota

lC

umul

ativ

e %

Jour

nal o

f Bus

ines

s E

thic

s98

19.4

19.4

Bus

ines

s &

Soc

iety

3824

.524

.5B

usin

ess

& S

ocie

ty46

9.1

28.5

Jour

nal o

f Bus

ines

s E

thic

s32

20.7

45.2

Bus

ines

s an

d So

ciet

y R

evie

wc

438.

537

.0A

cade

my

of M

anag

emen

t Rev

iew

138.

453

.6C

alif

orni

a M

anag

emen

t Rev

iew

295.

742

.8A

cade

my

of M

anag

emen

t Jou

rnal

95.

859

.4A

cade

my

of M

anag

emen

t Rev

iew

255.

047

.7A

cade

my

of M

anag

emen

t Jou

rnal

183.

651

.3Jo

urna

l of C

onte

mpo

rary

Bus

ines

s14

2.8

54.1

Acc

ount

ing,

Org

aniz

atio

ns a

nd S

ocie

ty12

2.4

56.4

Not

e: C

SR =

cor

pora

te s

ocia

l res

pons

ibili

ty; C

SP =

cor

pora

te s

ocia

l per

form

ance

.a.

The

nex

t jou

rnal

in th

e ra

nkin

g ha

s se

ven

pape

rs.

b. T

he n

ext j

ourn

al in

the

rank

ing

has

five

pape

rs.

c. T

his

incl

udes

vol

umes

of

Bus

ines

s an

d So

ciet

y R

evie

w/I

nnov

atio

n.

299



period of time, both in absolute numbers (Figures 5 and 6) and in percent-age of the total number per year (Figures 3 and 4). As the CSRCSP datasethas so much overlap with the CSR dataset, we chose to focus our analysesat the CSR dataset to maximize the contrast with the CSP dataset.

Several observations can be made. First, in the CSR dataset (Figure 6),descriptive papers dominate over theoretical and prescriptive papers untilthe mid-1980s. After that period, theoretical papers started to dominate.This occurs about half a decade before the strong increase in total numbersof publications is observed. This pattern is less pronounced for the CSPdataset (Figure 5), as already in the 1970s theoretical papers dominate thisdataset. However, because most of the missing papers in the CSR datasetare from the 1970s, this finding might need adjustment if the missingpapers could be added to the analysis. Second, the increase in the absolutenumber of prescriptive papers is observed to occur in the mid-1990s, onlyafter the overall rise in the number of papers. This holds for both the CSRand CSP datasets (Figures 5 and 6). Third, these observations are evenmore pronounced if not the absolute number but the relative number ofpapers is considered (Figures 3 and 4). In the CSR dataset, the share oftheoretical papers increases steadily to almost 60% in 2000 to 2002. Thisis particularly caused by a steady increase in the share of exploratory andpredictive papers; the portion of conceptual papers remains more or lessconstant across time. This increase is paralleled by a steady decrease in thepercentage of descriptive papers and, to a lesser extent, by a relativedecrease in the percentage of prescriptive papers (Figure 4), despite anincrease in their absolute numbers (Figure 6). In the CSP dataset, the rela-tive increase in the number of theoretical papers needs to be ascribed to theemergence of predictive papers in the late 1980s (Figure 3).

Citations. Citation patterns are relevant to see which publications, andwhat type of research, has been influential on the literature. It should benoted that information about the number of times a paper has been cited inlater publications is available only in WoS/SSCI and not in ABI/Inform.


Table 3Overall Epistemological Orientation, CSR, CSP, CSRCSP, Expressed as Percentage of Total

Theoretical Prescriptive

Descriptive Conceptual Exploratory Predictive Total Instrumental Normative Total

CSP 25.2 17.9 32.5 15.2 65.6 8.6 0.7 9.3CSR 38.9 12.7 23.8 10.6 47.1 10.8 3.2 14.0CSRCSP 37.0 13.5 25.0 10.2 48.7 11.4 2.9 14.3



We were able to obtain citation data for 76 (49.0%) entries out of the CSPdataset, and for 225 (44.6%) out of the CSR dataset. Table 4 indicateswhich papers are cited most often. We arbitrarily chose a cutoff point at50% of the total number of citations to each dataset, resulting in this coreset of 20 papers. The papers are predominantly published in Academy ofManagement journals (12 out of 20), whereas the dominance of one spe-cialist journal—Journal of Business Ethics—in the number of publica-tions is not reflected in the number of citations. It should be noted, how-


0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

'67-'69 '70-'72 '73-'75 '76-'78 '79-'81 '82-'84 '85-'87 '88-'90 '91-'93 '94-'96 '97-'99 '00-'02

conceptual exploratory predictive descriptive instrumental normative

Figure 3. Epistemological Orientation—CSP, % of Total 3-Year PeriodsNote: CSP = corporate social performance.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

'67-'69 '70-'72 '73-'75 '76-'78 '79-'81 '82-'84 '85-'87 '88-'90 '91-'93 '94-'96 '97-'99 '00-'02

conceptual exploratory predictive descriptive instrumental normative

Figure 4. Epistemological Orientation—CSR, % of Total 3-Year PeriodsNote: CSR = corporate social responsibility.



ever, that Business & Society, the other specialist journal, is not indexed byWoS/SSCI. It is therefore underrepresented in our citation analysis:Although citations within Business & Society are not covered, citations bypapers in indexed journals to papers in Business & Society are covered. Interms of their epistemological orientation, all 20 papers are theoretical (6conceptual, 9 exploratory, and 5 predictive).

Title word analysis. We extracted frequently used, relevant words fromthe titles of the papers in our datasets; then identified the most frequently


0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

'67-'69 '70-'72 '73-'75 '76-'78 '79-'81 '82-'84 '85-'87 '88-'90 '91-'93 '94-'96 '97-'99 '00-'02

nu

mb

er o

f p

ub

licat

ion

s

theoretical descriptive prescriptive

Figure 5. Epistemological Orientation, Aggregated—CSP, 3-Year PeriodsNote: CSP = corporate social performance.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

'67-'69 '70-'72 '73-'75 '76-'78 '79-'81 '82-'84 '85-'87 '88-'90 '91-'93 '94-'96 '97-'99 '00-'02

nu

mb

er o

f p

ub

licat

ion

s

theoretical prescriptive descriptive

Figure 6. Epistemological Orientation, Aggregated—CSR, 3-Year PeriodsNote: CSR = corporate social responsibility.



applied word pairs; and finally, using Automap software, visualized thelinkages between word pairs in two maps that represent two periods oftime. As an illustration, we mainly focus on the text analysis of the CSPdataset (Table 5) because for the CSR, the same patterns apply (Table 6).As title word frequencies from the CSP dataset show (Table 5), there is anincrease in theory-related terminology across time. Furthermore, thistable shows that an increasing number of issues is being addressed. Newconcepts are increasingly linked to CSP. This could be interpreted as abroadening of the literature. The CSR word frequencies presented inTable 6 show a similar pattern.

Co-word analysis. Table 7 provides a representation of frequently usedword pairs that were retrieved from paper titles in the CSP dataset. It is anadditional illustration of the evolution of central concepts in the field ofCSP. From this table, it can be seen that in each period of time, several


Table 4Most Cited Articles in CSR, CSP and CSRCSP Datasetsa

Dataset Reference Number of Citationsb

CSP Jones (1995) 119CSRCSP Wood (1991) 117CSP Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (1997) 107CSR Aupperle, Carroll, and Hatfield (1985) 96CSR McGuire, Sundgren, and Schneeweis (1988) 91CSRCSP Clarkson (1995) 72CSR Cochran and Wood (1984) 64CSRCSP Wartick and Cochran (1985) 63CSR Klassen and McLaughlin (1996) 61CSRCSP Waddock and Graves (1997) 48CSR Bowman and Haire (1975) 46CSR Alexander and Buchholz (1978) 45CSR Abbott and Monsen (1979) 44CSR Arlow (1991) 40CSR Robertson (1993) 37CSR Greening and Gray (1994) 36CSR Brown and Dacin (1997) 35CSR Sturdivant and Ginter (1977) 34CSR Turban and Greening (1997) 34CSR Spicer (1978) 33

Source: Collected online from WoS/SSCI on May 13 to 14, 2004.Note: CSR = corporate social responsibility; CSP = corporate social performance. The fullreferences are listed in the References section.a. Table is only indicative because ABI/Inform does not provide information of citationpatterns.



clusters are applied frequently. Although these clusters certainly havesome clear mutual relationships, such as corporate-social-reporting andcorporate-social-financial-performance, some variety among the differ-ent word pairs can be observed. Furthermore, it can be seen that the num-ber of word pairs appearing twice or more in the dataset is expandingacross time. New pairs focus on stakeholders, business ethics, and qualitymanagement, whereas the selection of CSP-related terms also increases.In the 1990s, the word pair empirical examination is fairly prominent.

In Figures 7 and 8, two concept maps are shown that draw on the CSRdataset. These maps have been developed from the list on which Table 6was based. These two maps provide a comparison between the situation inthe 1980s and in the 1990s, not only showing the increased number ofconcepts that are included in the titles but also indicating the increasinglinkages between the different concepts. A remarkable feature that isdemonstrated by these maps is the solid connection between CSR andCSP mediated through financial performance. Also, the two differentsides of the map seem to indicate that CSP is more concerned with institu-tional embeddedness (e.g., through concepts such as disclosure and mea-suring) and CSR more with stakeholder dialogue and interaction withsocial groups (e.g., through concepts such as response, relations, anddebate). Apart from the centrality of a performance-related cluster, also acluster around business and ethics can be observed in both figures. Theperiod 1994 to 1999 is characterized by more linkages and clusters. Obvi-ously, these findings are affected by the number of publications in each ofthese periods (38 in the first period, 87 in the second one).

DISCUSSION

Where do our results lead to? We started this article by indicating thatthere was not much clarity about the actual level of progress that has beenmade in the field of CSR/CSP. Our exploration was motivated by twoobservations: first, that the social responsibilities of business, firms, andmanagers have remained a much debated topic in the academic literatureduring the past years and, second, that different views can be distin-guished on whether and how this academic literature has evolved through-out time. We distinguished three views: progression, variegation, andnormativism. To explore which view better describes the evolution, if any,of the CSR/CSP literature during a period of 30 years, we applied a varietyof methods.

An important limitation of our study is in these methods: We mainlyused abstracts and titles, rather than full papers. The epistemological




classification was based on a close reading of abstracts and only in case ofdisagreement between the two coders, the full paper was examined. Itmight be the case that upon reading the entire paper, some of the judg-ments would be different. We discuss this later in this section. For theword frequency and co-word analyses, we relied on the titles, becausethese were available electronically. Extending these procedures for textanalysis to also include abstracts will certainly reveal additional concepts


Table 5Word Frequencies CSP

Note: CSP = corporate social performance; CSR = corporate social responsibility; CS = cor-porate social.

1976-1981 1982-1987 1988-1993 1994-1999 2000-2002

CSP 7 CSP 3 CSP 17 social 4 social 4 social 10 social 8 social 3 corporate 3 corporate 2 corporate 8 corporate 10 corporate 9 performance 3 performance 10 performance 15 performance 9 reporting 2 accounting 2 CSR 3 accountability 2 conceptual 2 theory 2 theory 4 theory 3 study 2 empirical 2 empirical 6 examination 7 research 4 model 3 model 3 implications 3 measuring 3 measurement 3 case 3 issues 2 issues 3 economic 2 management 2 management 6 stakeholder 12 stakeholder 4 financial 10 financial 6 relationship 4 relationship 4 institutional 5 organizational 5 fortune 4 ethics 3 ethics 4 attractiveness 3 environmental 3 CS 3 citizenship 3 business 5 organizational 4 firms 4 firm 3



and frequencies. Still, several observations can be drawn from our currentanalysis.

We observe that corporate social responsibility has increasingly beendrawn together in title words and replaced by the abbreviation CSR. This


Table 6Word Frequencies CSR

Note: CSR = corporate social responsibility; CS = corporate social; CSP = corporate socialperformance.

1976-1981 1982-1987 1988-1993 1994-1999 2000-2002

CS 43 CS 16 CS 9 CS 14 CS 14 corporate 7 corporate 13 corporate 9 corporate 21 corporate 17 social 16 social 13 social 9 social 12 social 6 performance 5 performance 6 performance 5 performance 15 performance 8 responsibility 37 responsibility 14 responsibility 9 responsibility 7 responsibility 5 management 7 management 5 management 5 management 11 management 7 business 8 business 9 business 7 business 15 business 8 CSR 21 CSR 23 CSR 31 CSR 40 CSP 7 CSP 8 CSP 27 CSP 18 attitudes 5 attitudes 4 ethical 3 ethical 5 ethical 7 ethics 4 ethics 8 ethics 8 ethics 8 accounting 6 accounting 4 accountability 3 disclosure 3 disclosure 4 reporting 6 reporting 3 reporting 7 responsiveness 3 responsiveness 7 response 3 response 3 survey 3 theory 3 theory 8 model 3 empirical 3 empirical 3 empirical 4 empirical 6 analysis 3 examination 9 debate 4 case 5 framework 4 financial 12 financial 9 issues 4 issues 4 relationship 6 stakeholder 7 stakeholder 5 environment 3 environment 13 environmental 5 market 3 marketing 4 public 3 public 3 consumer 4 process 4 policy 3 community 5 orientation 5 orientation 4 relationship 5 impact 4 determinants 4 implications 4 fortune 4 role 4 responsible 6 perspective 6 socially 4 investment 4 enterprise 3 multinational 3 firm 8 corporation 3 corporation 3 corporation 5 organizational 8 organizational 4 industry 4

institutional 5



Tabl

e 7

Wor

d Pa

ir F

requ

enci

es C

SP

1976

to 1

981

1982

to 1

987

1988

to 1

993

1994

to 1

999

2000

to 2

002

2 ac

coun

ting

CSP

2 co

rpor

ate

repo

rtin

g2

corp

orat

eso

cial

2 so

cial

repo

rtin

g

3 so

cial

econ

omic

2 ec

onom

icpe

rfor

man

ce2

soci

alpe

rfor

man

ce2

soci

aldi

sclo

sure

10 s

ocia

lpe

rfor

man

ce8

corp

orat

epe

rfor

man

ce8

corp

orat

eso

cial

2 ef

fect

iven

ess

perf

orm

ance

2 is

sues

man

agem

ent

4 co

rpor

ate

perf

orm

ance

2 co

rpor

ate

fina

ncia

l4

soci

alpe

rfor

man

ce2

soci

alfi

nanc

ial

10 f

inan

cial

perf

orm

ance

2 fi

rms

fina

ncia

l2

firm

spe

rfor

man

ce2

perf

orm

ance

empi

rica

l2

qual

itym

anag

emen

t2

rela

tions

hip

fina

ncia

l5

empi

rica

lex

amin

atio

n2

soci

alis

sues

2 st

akeh

olde

rre

latio

ns2

stak

ehol

der

salie

nce

2 st

akeh

olde

rth

eory

6 fi

nanc

ial

perf

orm

ance

2 C

Sfi

nanc

ial

2 C

Spe

rfor

man

ce2

CSP

fina

ncia

l2

CSP

perf

orm

ance

3 C

SPat

trac

tiven

ess

3 re

latio

nshi

pC

SP2

busi

ness

ethi

cs2

corp

orat

eci

tizen

ship

2 co

rpor

ate

soci

al2

mea

sure

men

tC

SP2

mea

suri

ngco

rpor

ate

2 m

easu

ring

perf

orm

ance

2 co

rpor

ate

perf

orm

ance

2 st

akeh

olde

rth

eory

2 C

SPfi

rm

Not

e:C

SP=

corp

orat

eso

cial

perf

orm

ance

;CS

=co

rpor

ate

soci

al.T

hehi

ghlig

hted

sect

ions

are

mos

tpro

min

entw

ord

pair

spe

rper

iod.

Inm

osti

nsta

nces

,the

sear

eco

mbi

natio

nsof

thre

ere

late

dte

rms(

in19

76to

1981

,for

inst

ance

,cor

pora

te,r

epor

ting

,and

soci

al).

The

mai

nex

cept

ion

isin

1994

to19

99w

here

empi

rica

land

exam

-in

atio

nis

a s

ole

wor

d pa

ir.

307



same phenomenon can be observed for CSP. In the growth of the CSR/CSP literature, there is an increasing integration with regular business andmanagement studies as the publications in mainstream management jour-nals show. Combined with the increased number of publications in the1990s, this suggests that the fields of CSR and CSP have become wellestablished. However, based on our results, it is difficult to retrieve the dis-tinct periods that Gerde and Wokutch (1998) found. In the periods theycharacterized as “development and expansion” and “institutionalization,”they observed a significant increase in the number of theory-testingpapers. However, in our set of papers, these two periods cannot be distin-guished, neither in the number of publications nor in their epistemologicalorientation.

We further observe that many of the papers that discuss the CSP–FPlink are in the descriptive category. These papers often involve reexamina-tions of previous findings, comparisons between different measures ofCSP, or applications of CSP–FP links in yet another setting (differentcountries, different industries). We labeled these studies as descriptivebecause they do not move on to providing a theoretical contribution.These papers seem to be stuck in a repetitive mode—an observation Col-lins (2000) also made concerning progress in the field of business ethics—as they do not so much build on each other’s work but mainly repeat or cri-tique it without providing underlying causal relationships. It can be


accounting

business

changing

corporate

cs

csr

debate

disclosureeconomic

environment

ethics

financial

government

legal

management

new

performance

policy

process

relationship

response

responsibility

responsible

social

socially

Figure 7. Word Pairs CSR, 1982 to 1987Note: CSR = corporate social responsibility.



suggested that such studies are done to increase legitimacy for the field ofbusiness and society; if a positive CSP–FP link was to be found, then prag-matic reasons—increased performance—would be added to the moralarguments as to why firms should attend to their social responsibilities(Rowley & Berman, 2000).

So which of the three views provides a better description of develop-ments in the CSR/CSP field? What is clear is that the normativist view isnot substantiated by our analysis. Papers that have been characterized asbeing prescriptive make up only a small portion of the total number ofpapers in our datasets, and relatively few words from our text analysespoint at normative issues. Yet some normative work might be “hidden” inother papers, especially in the descriptive ones, which, according to ourdefinitions, focus on reporting facts or opinions without any intention ofproviding a theoretical or prescriptive contribution. If this were the case,we would have fallen victim to a sort of inversed naturalistic fallacy; thepaper abstract was written in a descriptive fashion, or we understood it tobe descriptive, whereas the author’s real intention was to suggest howthings should be. Another possibility might be that normative and instru-mental tendencies are hidden in predictive papers.8 If such cases wouldhave been found, however, we would probably maintain that these papersshould still be classified as predictive. In such instances, the prescriptivepreferences of the author have been transformed into a prediction as to


board

business

consumer

corporate

cs

csp

csr

determinants

effectiveness

empirical

environment

ethical

ethics

examination

financial

impact

institutional

issues

management

meaning

measuring

membersnew

organizational

orientation

performancerelations

relationship

reporting

response

responsibility

responsiveness

social

society

stakeholder

values

Figure 8. Word Pairs CSR, 1994 to 1999Note: CSR = corporate social responsibility.



whether the prescription is effective. The central point of the paper there-fore would be theory testing. Of course, the author would be sincere if heor she acknowledged that his or her preferences for increased levels ofCSR/CSP are the reason for being interested in exploring the relationshipin the first place, but then the discussion would turn to a general argumentregarding the normative underpinnings of any type of research (seeNote 2).

Our data provide support for both progression and variegation. Theincreasing dominance of CSR/CSP as central concepts, and the associa-tion of new terms can be regarded as an indication that the field is vibrantand developing. In combination with the number of often cited key papersin high-ranking journals, it seems that CSR has truly arrived as a manage-rial and strategic specialty. Support for this progressive view is found inthe increase of theoretical papers in both datasets and especially in theincrease of the subset of predictive papers. Also, the prominence of CSR/CSP papers in the Academy of Management journals and the number ofcitations these papers attract indicate progression. However, there is alsoan increasing number of differentiated concepts that are associated withthe central concepts of CSR and CSP, and descriptive work maintains astrong position in both datasets, next to the strong presence of theoreticalpapers. These findings lend support to the variegational view. The associ-ation of other concepts with the CSR/CSP core then may reflect changingpriorities in society, rather than a refinement and further operational-ization of the general central concepts in more specific fields, as wassuggested by Carroll (1999).

It is difficult to draw any strong conclusions concerning which of thelatter two views provides a better description of the actual developmentsin this field. This question could be addressed in various ways. A first andobvious way would be to make a more in-depth analysis of the papers’contents, as was done in a recent review on corporate political action(Lamberg, Skippari, Eloranta, & Makinen, 2004). Another way of mov-ing forward would be to analyze citations to core papers in the CSR/CSPfield as identified in Table 4. In a progressive field, authors would supple-ment each others’ findings, test one another’s propositions, propose alter-native explanations, and so forth. Progression would be more likely if cita-tions to core papers in the CSR/CSP field were for their actual content andnot for some socially constructed interpretation thereof (cf. Mizruchi &Fein, 1999) or as “token” references to show social connectedness to theCSR/CSP field (Liu, 1993). Such research profiling could reveal topicalrelationships and research trends (Porter, Kongthon, & Lu, 2002) andinvestigate coherence in a certain field.




Variegation or progression might also be revealed by studying co-citation patterns within the different fields to which the CSR/CSP litera-ture yielded (Carroll, 1999). Our own exploration (see Note 3) suggeststhat authors are selective in how to position their paper: Fields such asissues management, corporate citizenship, corporate philantropy, andsocial accountability seem to have emerged as distinct literatures, butCarroll’s suggestion is that such fields have a common ancestor in the fieldof CSR/CSP. Yet how different they are is unclear. This question could beaddressed by analyzing what previous papers these new fields build onand how they are used. If high levels of similarity in co-citation patternswere found both within and across these fields, then support for variega-tion would be stronger. In the scenario of high degrees of co-citationwithin each distinct new field, but little overlap across fields, then progres-sion would be the more likely explanation. This progression need not bewithin the CSR/CSP field itself but might be on the basis of its refinementand specialization into specific and relatively independent subfields. In asense, the emergence of CSP as a separate stream of literature from theCSR mainstream could then also be considered an early example of pro-gression into a specific subfield. Such subfield progression need not beparalleled by progression within the CSR mainstream; indeed, variega-tion in the CSR literature might fulfill a very important role as a nurseryroom out of which every now and then specific subfields of inquiryemerge, eventually losing touch with their ancestors.

Further suggestions for how the field might advance are beyond theconfines of our exploration. Having taken stock of the current CSR/CSPliterature and considering how variegation and progression might berelated, we can, however, suggest ways how to address the literature’s cur-rent limitations (Rowley & Berman, 2000; Walsh, Weber & Margolis,2003). The following ideas to study sidestreams from the current main-stream have both theoretical and practical implications. For example, toinvestigate how companies become more responsible (e.g., under pres-sure from investors, consumers, nongovernmental organizations, or activ-ist groups; cf. Bartley, 2003; Brinkmann, 2004; Guay, Doh, & Sinclair,2004) might be more productive than focusing on the financial perfor-mance related to alleged CSR/CSP practices. Furthermore, rather thanfocusing on traits of different populations of current or future decisionmakers (such as managers and business students) as predictors of theirpropensities to endorse CSR principles and practices, it might be moreproductive to study the consequences of such principles and practices toemployees and other stakeholders, as well as conditions for these stake-holders’ continued support to the decision makers’ firm (cf. Klein, Smith,& John, 2004; Sobczak, 2003). Finally, it might be more productive to




investigate how instruments for measuring CSR (such as codes of con-duct, standards and international norms) develop institutional weight (cf.Déjean, Gond, & Leca, 2004) and how they might contribute to regulatingthe global firm (cf. Gendron, Lapointe, & Turcotte, 2004) rather thanfocusing on the similarities and differences among such standards, or ontheir moral justification.

We conclude our exploration by restating the contribution of this arti-cle. Although earlier studies already have taken stock of the state of the artin the CSR/CSP literature (cf. Carroll, 1999; Gerde & Wokutch, 1998;Griffin & Mahon, 1997; Rowley & Berman, 2000), our analysis extendsand complements these findings by using bibliometric methods and byvisualizing changes in the epistemological orientation of papers on CSR/CSP. The views that stress progression and variegation can find some sup-port in our analysis. It seems that in CSR/CSP research, two processes areoccurring simultaneously: There is a tendency to build on each other’swork, to develop propositions, and to test theories. But at the same time,new constructs and new linkages are continually being proposed, asshown in the diverging number of issues found in the title word analysis.In this article, we have shown that the field of CSR/CSP has becomefirmly embedded in the management sciences. Each of the indicators weapplied can be interpreted as a sign of growth of this field of research thathas potentially more to offer than it currently does.

NOTES

1. As one reviewer noted, compete here might sound more fiendish than actually is thecase, as most people working in the field of social issues in management would not care muchfor what the work is called. Although that will be true for many researchers, there seems to besome definitional struggle in this area as well. For example, Matten, Crane, and Chapple(2003) made an effort to indicate why the term corporate social responsibility, in their view,would not suffice (and why corporate citizenship might be a better catch-all phrase). Suchdifferent insights on definitions might be regarded as a competition of ideas.

2. In a sense, all management research is normative, as it tends to uncritically accept cer-tain things as a given. For example, researchers using business financial performance as adependent variable show an (implicit) preference as to that increased financial performanceis a good thing; agency theorists accept that there are principles and agents and that agents areto act in their principles’ interests; researchers on competitiveness tend to accept thatincreased competitiveness is a good thing. From this understanding, theories on social issuesin management such as corporate social responsibility/corporate social performance, corpo-rate citizenship, and stakeholder theory are normative in a dual sense. First, and parallel to theexamples cited above, theorists in these fields tend to accept that firms have social obligationsand multiple stakeholders that need to be attended to. Second, they feel obliged to defend orjustify the relative unorthodoxy of this position (or they are challenged to do so) and




consequently substantiate their preferences by a recourse to ethical arguments. It is this sec-ond meaning of normativism that distinguishes the social issues, stakeholder, and relatedliteratures from more traditional management research.

3. In August 2003, we did additional searches in WoS combined SCI-EXPANDED/SSCI/A&HCI, all years, as appearing in article title, keywords, or abstract. One dataset wasbased on searches into corporate philanthropy, business philanthropy, and corpor* contribu-tion*, containing 57 entrees. Another was based on corporate* accountability and socialaccountability, containing 34 papers. A third was on corporate citizen* and business citi-zen*, containing 46 papers. A fourth on issue* management, containing 47 papers after delet-ing papers with punctuation marks between issue* and management. A combi dataset wascreated on the basis of these four sets with 186 references, including 5 duplicates. We thenchecked for overlap between the combi set and the CSRCSP dataset we used for our analyses.There was less than 10% overlap: 15 papers from this combi dataset (181 entrees) alsoappeared in the combined CSRCSP dataset (549 entrees) we used. We consider this sufficientjustification to conclude that these are separate literatures.

4. Following a reviewer’s remark, we searched the WoS SSCI database for stakeholder*on February 22, 2005. This resulted in 3.308 hits; this large amount provides an additionalreason not to include stakeholder-related search terms in our analysis.

5. Conceptually, Table 1 is based on a positivist stance toward research, not because webelieve that academic research is actually, or solely should be, conducted according to thenorms of methodological positivism and not because we think that alternative stances toresearch are not viable or valuable, but because most of the social science and business jour-nals demand from their authors to frame their contributions in a positivist format.

6. Full steps for these procedures can be found in the Automap User’s Guide (Carely &Diesner, 2005).

7. Included in UCINET and available on http://www.analytictech.com.8. We thank an anonymous reviewer for having made this suggestion.

REFERENCES

Abbott, W. F., & Monsen, R. J. (1979). On the measurement of corporate social responsibil-ity: Self-reported disclosures as a method of measuring corporate social involvement.Academy of Management Journal, 22(3), 501-515.

Alexander, G. J., & Buchholz, R. A. (1978). Corporate social responsibility and stock-marketperformance. Academy of Management Journal, 21(3), 479-486.

Arlow, P. (1991). Personal characteristics in college-students evaluations of business ethicsand corporate social-responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 10(1), 63-69.

Aupperle, K. E., Carroll, A. B., & Hatfield, J. D. (1985). An empirical-examination of therelationship between corporate social-responsibility and profitability. Academy of Man-agement Journal, 28(2), 446-463.

Barley, S. R., Meyer, G. W., & Gash, D. C. (1988). Cultures of culture. Academics, practitio-ners and the pragmatics of normative control. Administrative Science Quarterly, 33(1),24-60.

Bartley, T. (2003). Certifying forests and factories: States, social movements, and the rise ofprivate regulation in the apparel and forest products fields. Politics & Society, 31(3), 433-464.

Baumgartner, H., & Pieters, R. (2003). The structural influence of marketing journals: A cita-tion analysis of the discipline and its subareas over time. Journal of Marketing, 67(2),123-139.




Beck, U. (2000). What is globalization? Cambridge, UK: Polity.Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M. G., & Freeman, L. C. (2002). UCINET 6 for Windows: Software

for social network analysis. Harvard, MA: Analytic Technologies.Bowman, E. H., & Haire, M. (1975). Strategic posture toward corporate social responsibility.

California Management Review, 18(2), 49-58.Brinkmann, J. (2004). Looking at consumer behavior in a moral perspective. Journal of Busi-

ness Ethics, 51(2), 129-141.Brown, T. J., & Dacin, P. A. (1997). The company and the product: Corporate associations

and consumer product responses. Journal of Marketing, 61(1), 68-84.Callon, M., Law, J., & Rip, A. (Eds.). (1986). Mapping the dynamics of science and technol-

ogy. Sociology of science in the real world. New York: Macmillan.Carley, K. M. (1997). Extracting team mental models through textual analysis. Journal of

Organizational Behavior, 18, 533-558.Carley, K. M., & Diesner, J. (2005). Automap: Software for network text analysis. Available

on http://www.casos.cs.cmu.eduCarroll, A. B. (1979). A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate social perfor-

mance. Academy of Management Review, 4, 497-505.Carroll, A. B. (1999). Corporate social responsibility. Evolution of a definitional construct.

Business & Society, 38, 268-295.Clarkson, M. B. E. (1995). A stakeholder framework for analyzing and evaluating corporate

social performance. Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 92-117.Cochran, P. L., & Wood, R. A. (1984). Corporate social responsibility and financial perfor-

mance. Academy of Management Journal, 27(1), 42-56.Collins, D. (2000). The quest to improve the human condition: The first 1,500 articles pub-

lished in the Journal of Business Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 26(1), 1-73.Déjean, F., Gond, J. P., & Leca, B. (2004). Measuring the unmeasured: An institutional entre-

preneur strategy in an emerging industry. Human Relations, 57(6), 741-764.Dobers, P., Strannegard, L., & Wolff, R. (2000). Union-jacking the research agenda. A study

of the frontstage and backstage of Business Strategy and the Environment 1992-1998.Business Strategy and the Environment, 9, 49-61.

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Agency theory. An assessment and review. Academy of Manage-ment Review, 14(1), 57-74.

Frederick, W. C. (1994). From CSR1 to CSR2. Business & Society, 33, 150-164.Gendron, C., Lapointe, A., & Turcotte, M. F. (2004). Social responsibility and the regulation

of the global firm. Relations Industrielles-Industrial Relations, 59(1), 73-100.Gerde, V. W., & Wokutch, R. E. (1998). 25 years and going strong: A content analysis of the

first 25 years of the Social Issues in Management Division Proceedings. Business & Soci-ety, 37(4), 414-446.

Greening, D. W., & Gray, B. (1994). Testing a model of organizational response to social andpolitical issues. Academy of Management Journal, 37(3), 467-498.

Griffin, J. J., & Mahon, J. F. (1997). The corporate social performance and corporate finan-cial performance debate: Twenty-five years of incomparable research. Business & Soci-ety, 36, 5-31.

Guay, T., Doh, J. P., & Sinclair, G. (2004). Non-governmental organizations, shareholderactivism, and socially responsible investments: Ethical, strategic, and governance impli-cations. Journal of Business Ethics, 52(1), 125-139.

Hill, V., & Carley, K. M. (1999). An approach to identifying consensus in a subfield: The caseof organizational culture. Poetics, 27, 1-30.




Ingwersen, P. (2000). The international visibility and citation impact of Scandinavianresearch papers in selected social science fields: The decay of a myth. Scientometrics,49(1), 39-61.

Jones, T. M. (1995). Instrumental stakeholder theory: A synthesis of ethics and economics.Academy of Management Review, 20(2), 404-437.

Jones, T. M., & Wicks, A. C. 1999. Convergent stakeholder theory. Academy of ManagementReview, 24(2), 206-221.

Klassen, R. D., & McLaughlin, C. P. (1996). The impact of environmental management onfirm performance. Management Science, 42(8), 1199-1214.

Klein, J. G., Smith, N. C., & John, A. (2004). Why we boycott: Consumer motivations forboycott participation. Journal of Marketing, 68(3), 92-109.

Lamberg, J. A., Skippari, M., Eloranta, J., & Makinen, S. (2004). The evolution of corporatepolitical action: A framework for processual analysis. Business & Society, 43(4), 335-365.

Lewis, E. T., Diesner, J., & Carley, K. M. (2003, February). Concept networks in organiza-tional language: Consensus or creativity? Paper presented at the XXIII Sunbelt SocialNetwork Conference, Cancún, Mexico.

Liu, M. X. (1993). Progress in documentation. The complexities of citation practice: Areview of citation studies. Journal of Documentation, 49(4), 370-408.

Locke, J., & Perera, H. (2001). The intellectual structure of international accounting in theearly 1990s. International Journal of Accounting, 36(2), 223-249.

Macpherson, R. J. S. (1998). Contractual or responsive accountability? Neo-centralist “self-management” or systemic subsidiarity? Tasmanian parents’and other stakeholders’pol-icy preferences. Australian Journal of Education, 42(1), 66-89.

Margolis, J. D., & Walsh, J. P. (2003). Misery loves companies: Rethinking social initiativesby business. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(2), 268-305.

Matten, D., Crane, A., & Chapple, W. (2003). Behind the mask: Revealing the true face ofcorporate citizenship. Journal of Business Ethics, 45(1-2), 109-120.

McGuire, J. B., Sundgren, A., & Schneeweis, T. (1988). Corporate social responsibility andfirm financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 31(4), 854-872.

McWilliams, A., & Siegel, D. (2001). Corporate social responsibility: A theory of the firmperspective. Academy of Management Review, 26(1), 117-127.

Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identifica-tion and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Man-agement Review, 22(4), 853-886.

Mizruchi, M. S., & Fein, L. C. (1999). The social construction of organizational knowledge:A study of the uses of coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphism. AdministrativeScience Quarterly, 44(4), 653-683.

Mohan, A. (2003). Strategies for the management of complex practices in complex organiza-tions: A study of the transnational management of corporate responsibility. Unpublisheddoctoral dissertation, University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

Morrison, E. W., & Bies, R. J. (1991). Impression management in the feedback-seeking pro-cess: A literature review and research agenda. Academy of Management Review, 16(3),522-541.

Orlitzky, M., Schmidt, F. L., & Rynes, S. L. (2003). Corporate social and financial perfor-mance: A meta-analysis. Organization Studies, 24(3), 403-441.

Popping, R. (1999). Computer-assisted text analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Porter, A. L., Kongthon, A., & Lu, J.-C. (2002). Research profiling: Improving the literature

review. Scientometrics, 53(3), 351-370.




Preston, L. E. (1986). Social issues and public policy in business and management: Retro-spect and prospect. College Park: University of Maryland, Center for Business and Pub-lic Policy.

Roberts, C. W. (1997). Text analysis for the social sciences. Mahwah, NJ: LawrenceErlbaum.

Robertson, D. C. 1993. Empiricism in business ethics. Suggested research directions. Jour-nal of Business Ethics, 12(8), 585-599.

Rowley, T. J., & Berman, S. (2000). A brand new brand of corporate social performance.Business & Society, 39(4), 397-418.

Ruf, B. M., Muralidhar, K., & Paul, K. (1998). The development of a systematic, aggregatemeasure of corporate social performance. Journal of Management, 24(1), 119-133.

Sobczak, A. (2003). Codes of conduct in subcontracting networks: A labour law perspective.Journal of Business Ethics, 44(2), 225-234.

Spicer, B. H. (1978). Investors, corporate social performance and information disclosure: Anempirical study. Accounting Review, 53(1), 94-111.

Strange, S. (1996). The retreat of the state: The diffusion of power in the world economy.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Sturdivant, F. D., & Ginter, J. L. (1977). Corporate social responsiveness. Management atti-tudes and economic performance. California Management Review, 19(3), 30-39.

Tahai, A., & Meyer, M. J. (1999). A revealed preference study of management journals’direct influences. Strategic Management Journal, 20, 279-296.

Turban, D. B., & Greening, D. W. (1997). Corporate social performance and organizationalattractiveness to prospective employees. Academy of Management Journal, 40(3), 658-672.

van Dalen, H. P., & Henkens, K. (2001). What makes a scientific paper influential? The caseof demographers. Scientometrics, 50(3), 455-482.

Waddock, S. A., & Graves, S. B. (1997). The corporate social performance-financial perfor-mance link. Strategic Management Journal, 18, 303-319.

Walsh, J. P., Weber, K., & Margolis, J. D. (2003). Social issues and management: Our lostcause found. Journal of Management, 29(6), 859-881.

Wartick, S. L., & Cochran, P. L. (1985). The evolution of the corporate social performancemodel. Academy of Management Review, 10(4), 758-769.

Whetten, D. A., Rands, G., & Godfrey, P. (2002). What are the responsibilities of business tosociety? In A. Pettigrew, H. Thomas, & R. Whittington (Eds.), Handbook of strategy andmanagement (pp. 373-408). London: Sage.

Windsor, D. (2001). The future of corporate social responsibility. International Journal ofOrganizational Analysis, 9, 225-256.

Wood, D. J. (1991). Corporate social performance revisited. Academy of ManagementReview, 16(4), 691-718.

Zinkhan, G. M., & Balazs, A. L. (2004). A stakeholder-integrated approach to health caremanagement. Journal of Business Research, 57(9), 984-989.

Frank G. A. de Bakker is an assistant professor of strategic management in the De-partment of Public Administration and Organization Science, Faculty of SocialScience, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His current research fo-cuses on processes of institutional change regarding corporate social responsibil-ity and the role of social movement organizations therein. E-mail: [email protected]




Peter Groenewegen is an associate professor in the same department. His researchis on social networks and organizations and the role of science and technologyin society. His current research focuses on how institutional interaction, ex-pert knowledge, and technology cause changes in organizations. E-mail:[email protected]

Frank den Hond is an assistant professor of strategic management in the same de-partment. He teaches in strategic management and corporate social responsibil-ity. His current research focuses on institutional change and corporate social re-sponsibility. E-mail: [email protected]




business & society - vu-dare home - vrije universiteit amsterdam

Documents